Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, January 16, 2008

She's articulate and enjoys school at the Seattle Urban Academy. Education, she says, is her ticket out of the 'hood, near 28th Avenue South and South Jackson Street, where she has lived most of her life. She dreams about one day having a clothing line and giving Vera Wang a run for her money.

Meet Camille Michael. She will challenge what you think about Seattle gang members and the people who love them.

Given her lofty goals, Camille tells me she doesn't waste time going to parties.

"Why would I? I expect for someone to act disrespectful, and for people to feel like they can do whatever they want. If you go to parties around here, it's more likely than not something is going to happen."

Something just did.

On Jan. 3, at a high school party near lower Queen Anne, Allen Joplin, 17, was gunned down in what police say may be a gang-related slaying.

Allen, who played football for Cleveland High, had ties to Seattle's Deuce Eights gang, named for an area near 28th Avenue South where members hang out.

Camille, who steered clear of the party, viewed Allen as a best friend, "like a brother" -- if you needed 10 bucks, he would peel off more, an Andrew Jackson for you, no questions.

The night before Allen got shot, they had argued like siblings, over a cheeseburger from Wendy's. She had it. He wanted it. She didn't cave. He melted from her smile.

"Now he's dead," she told me with a thousand-yard stare. "Just like that."

Camille caught my eye right away last week on the corner of 28th and Jackson at a vigil for Allen.

She was the only person toting a clipboard in the numbingly cold night. Someone had offered to lend out sports jackets for the young mourners to wear at Allen's funeral. Like a drill sergeant, she wrote down each person's size, as people gladly complied.

The girl holding the clipboard offered a brief look into the complex, nuanced lives of young people -- the folks some are quick to write off with their sagging pants and hooded sweat shirts.

Camille lives with her grandmother, she told me, adding, "My mom is in the picture."

On cue, a pleasant woman walked up behind her. It was Mom. She sized me up and walked away.

Camille said her father is in Iraq, working as a contractor.

Deep breath. Sigh.

Allen's memory weighs. She described him as introverted, quiet, sweet -- unless provoked. "People assume he's from the 'hood and that he's just nothing," she said, catching her use of the present tense. "He was in honors classes."

She said Allen recently applied for nearly a dozen jobs but just couldn't get anyone to call him back.

So, he looked to make money by other means.

Friends hugged and comforted one another near us. A good number wore Deuce Eights gear.

If they had grown up in another part of Seattle, or in a better tax bracket, these young men and women from the same community might carry their bond into the same fraternity or sorority. But fate and choice bind them in a group that police and neighbors call a gang, but whose members see themselves as family in every sense -- loving, loyal and dysfunctional. For some, the group is their only real family.

I asked Camille if she was in Deuce Eights.

Her sweet tone hardened for a beat.

"If it came down to it, I would ride with the Eights," she said, softening. "But it's not like I'm out here with a (gang) flag in my pocket."

Even so, having a front-row seat to "the life" made Allen's death a gut punch, opening her eyes in more ways than one. It made her realize the preciousness of life and the heartlessness of those who take it away.

It also led to an epiphany.

In the 18 years she has lived in the Central Area, she says, white people either didn't speak to her or looked straight through her.

After the street memorial for Allen went up, unexpected visitors dropped by.

"People say white people don't care," said Camille, who is African-American. "Well, white people came and washed our blankets and brought us hot chocolate. Not all white people are bad."

Her words had a sense of wonder, and that's when it struck me. She's just a kid -- like many of those standing near her.

She's still learning, still needs a helping hand. She's basically a good person trying to make it the best way she knows, given her tough environment.

She walks a razor's edge.

On one side, lie her dreams -- finishing high school, maybe going to college, and becoming a fashion designer for plus-size women.

On the other are deep neighborhood ties -- the people she knows, the people she loves, the people who can bring her down.